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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Hello, OCC friends, happy Halloween! Meihsia Liu here to announce our winner for the Clean and Simple Kitchen challenge last week. First of all, I would like to thank all of you who participated and shared your creativity and talent with us. I love all your fabulous simple and clean kitchen projects. And here is our winner of last week - Chrissy.

Chrissy got such a brilliant idea using magnet on the card and the chain with tiny spoon, fork and knife is so cute. Great design! Chrissy, thank you for sharing such a gorgeous creation with us. Please feel free to grab our Top Talent Award badge to display on your blog.

Hope you all have a happy and safe Halloween. Don't forget to come back and check out our Top Talent Thursday tomorrow!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Happy Saturday and welcome to another fun weekly challenge here, at Our Creative Corner! My name is Marcy Kaminski from En Papillote Arts and I am really excited to be your hostess this week!

First, I would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone who participated in last week's challenge, "Clean and Simple Kitchen." All the wonderful entries were really creative and simply amazing!
And have you seen our newest Top Talent Thursday yet? Isn't Jenny fabulous? Her project is chock full of eye candy and I really enjoyed learning more about her thought process through her interesting interview. Please keep a close watch on the coming Top Talent Thursday and see who will be featured under our spotlight.

Now it’s time to get your “spook” on! My challenge for you is a "MASKING for Halloween Technique/Theme Challenge" In the "spirit" AND theme of Halloween, we will be using the MASKING technique! HEREis a wonderful link for some inspiration. Show us your scariest creation using this technique!

Before we showcase her project, we'd like to share some questions and
answers that we put to her. So we'll turn the stage over to her now.

1. Where do you live?

I live in Staffordshire in the UK. It is known as the 'Heart of
the Country' and is one of the best places I have lived. Surrounded by
the National Forest and with the Peak District on the doorstep, it's the
perfect place to enjoy the 'great outdoors'. We live next to a major
canal, which is fun as there are always plenty of boats carrying
visitors, and are often greeted with the wonderful smells of malting
from the local brewery:) Am I selling it to you?

2. If you could only use three craft supplies for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Just three? That's cruel! I guess inks, stamps and embossing
folders are my essentials, but there are so many others that come really
close, like my new diffusers.

3. Markers or chalk?

Markers.

4. What colour inspires your creativity?

Hmmm, got a bit of a thing about colour. It's always the first
thing that attracts me to a completed project or piece of art. If pushed
I'd say my favourite is Teal. I'm more of a cool colour girl.

5. Describe one thing you really enjoy about the challenges at Our Creative Corner.

I enjoy the challenges at Our Creative Corner because the themes
are different from others and unrestricted by having to use specific
products (you can bet I don't have what's required in those cases). Of
course the Design Team inspiration is always outstanding too, always
useful if Mr Mojo has done a disappearing act!

6. How long have you been crafting and what made you start crafting?

I've been crafting in one way or another all my life; creating
paper dolls at home and drawing a lot at school; making my own clothes
as a teen; completing sewing, tapestry and cross stitch projects for the
home; and even now I knit sporadically. However, papercrafting became
something of 'obsession' about two years ago. With the help of various
family members I have traced our family history back, in some cases to
the 1600's and wanted to record my findings in an accessible way. That
started me scrapping, which lead to getting a card making kit, which
lead to playing with anything else I can get my hands on now!

(We can all relate to the word obsession!)

7. What is your favourite holiday/event to make crafts for?

My favourite crafting season has to be Christmas because there is a
definite destination for my efforts. I'm the sort of crafter that has
to make something for a reason - cards to send, pots to hold things,
bags to hold pressies, you know the type of thing. I just don't have the
space to store lots of projects made for the sake of it, and anyway,
the joy of creating is partly the doing and partly in sharing it with
others. All my Christmas tags this year will make it onto the front of
cards for family and friends.

(A person after my own heart!

Now sit back and enjoy her project - A Diary cover.

Stunning work!

What a delight for the eyes this piece of work is and we are thrilled to showcase her amazing talent with you, if you are inspired and want to see more, then pop over to Jenny's blog (pushingtherightbuttons).

Thank you, Jenny for being our Top Talent and sharing such wonderful inspiration with us!

If you' would like the opportunity to be part of

'Top Talent Thursday'

at Our Creative Corner, it is so easy just join in
our current challenge:

Hello, Our Creative Corner Friends, thank you so much for participating our Fall in the Circle challenge last week. I just love all your fabulous creations that show how beautiful autumn is. It is really a tough decision and finally here is our winner of Fall in the Circle challenge - Evelyn

Evelyn used CD as base to create this gorgeous piece of artwork. What a brilliant idea! I love the beautiful embossed background and fantastic fall leaves. Thank you, Evelyn, for sharing your creativity with us. Please feel free to grab our Top Talent Award badge to display on your blog.

And for all you talented crafters, don't forget to join our current challenge - Clean and Simple Kitchen. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Hello, Our Creative Corner friends, it's time for another fun challenge. Meihsia here, your hostess again and invite you to play along with us. First of all, thank you for joining us last week's Fall in the Circle challenge. We saw many awesome creations from you talented crafters and we want to see more for this week. We will be announcing our winner on Wednesday, so be sure and check back then to see who it is!

And have you read our first Top Talent Thursday yet? Isn't Alison wonderful? I really love Alison's gorgeous project and enjoy learning more about our selected challenge winner through the interesting interview. Please keep a close watch on the coming Top Talent Thursday and see who will be featured under our spotlight.

Back to our challenge this week, the theme is CLEAN AND SIMPLE KITCHEN - please make a CAS (CLEAN and SIMPLE) card / project featuring something you would see in the kitchen. Can't wait to see what you will create!

Here are samples from our design team for your inspiration.
Happy crafting!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

The wonderfully creative DT ladies have all agreed that the winners of our challenges need to have a special day set aside just for them to shine. No longer will winners have their works displayed with us, but they will have an entire day to showcase who they are, what inspires them and a project or card all of their choosing!

We would like to introduce and congratulate Alison for being selected as our Top Talent and for contributing such wonderful creativity to Our Creative Corner.

It's time now to draw back the curtains, turn on the spotlights and grab a comfy chair as we present to you our featured Top Talent for this Thursday.

Enjoy!

Here are few questions we asked Alison, because inquiring minds want to know.

This is what she said...

1) Where do you live?

You would think this would be easy to answer - but I’m somewhat itinerant... My family home is just north of London, UK, and that’s usually where I gravitate to, but over the last decade work has meant I’m just as often in the beautiful town of Stratford-upon-Avon, home to William Shakespeare; and I’m now embarking on new adventures which mean that I hope to spend part of each year living in the Czech Republic, and also mean that our much-loved family home of 40 years is being sold - so who knows where I’ll end up?!

2) If you could be a super-hero, what power would you possess?

I think I’d have to go for time travel - anyone who knows my work will recognise the vintage/nostalgia thread that runs through it. I would be so fascinated to be able to visit other times... and I would love to catch my favourite writers and composers at work. The spark for my creations often comes from words - quotes, poetry - or from music and lyrics. That’s the reason my blog is called Words and Pictures - it really is about being inspired by both, for me.

3) How would you describe your art for the general public audience if they had never seen it before?

Definitely with a vintage-y label; inky and stampy certainly; and it’s got to have texture (actual or metaphorical); but I wouldn’t want to pin it down to grungy or shabby chic or steampunk etc; I’m still exploring styles - I like combining them too. There are so many inspirational influences out there in Craftyblogland - Tim Holtz, the DTs here at OCC, Frilly and Funkie, SSSaS, and the Fashionable Stamping Challenge to mention just the tip of a huge iceberg... there’s just so much to try out!!

4) How would you describe what it means to have an "Artistic Outlook" on life?

For me it’s about allowing yourself time to stop and listen (with all the senses) to the world outside yourself and the world inside yourself, and allowing each to feed the other.

5) Picking only one color of paint, which would you prefer on your carpet?

Well, the floor is hand-painted as bleached wood (yup, by me, nine times on my knees over the whole area), but there’s a blue rug, so for the least obvious mess it would have to be blue, please...

6) Are you a daytime or nighttime crafter?

I have done a number of successful insomniac sessions - and recent work commitments have meant some late night and early morning crafting... but in an ideal world I would just sit there all day long, and then get a good night’s sleep!!

7) Any one tip to organize your craft room?

Um... not really. I do try to clear most of the work surface between projects, otherwise I find it hard to think - I need space for my mind to wander. But there’s no magic trick to it sadly. Generally what it means is the craft table itself looks organized, but everywhere around is crazy messy!

Also, without further adieu, here is Alison's project to inspire!

Applause,
applause, applause!!!

Thank you Alison for being our Thursday's Top Talent and sharing such
wonderful inspiration with us!

To leave Alison some love and read more about this sensational project, please visit her blog

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Hi there. I want to thank everyone for participating in last week Let's Be Royal challenge. Your creations have been gorgeous. I really had a hard job deciding which card to pick as a winner, but this card is a great interpretation of the challenge.

Congratulations to Nicola at Paper Profusion!! I was amazed by Nicola's card. I love what she has done with the dress. The gold mesh is a great background and the sentiment is awesome. Everything on her card is very regal. Please Nicola feel free to pick up the Top Talent's winner badge from our sidebar and display it proudly on your blog.